Pa. county has second thoughts about investment in Sorvino film

More than two years ago, Lackawanna County agreed to partner with Sorvino on “The Trouble with Cali,” an independent film the “GoodFellas” star is producing and directing in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Shot in the Scranton area in 2006, the low-budget movie has yet to hit theaters, prompting the cash-strapped county to ask Sorvino what he has done with its $500,000 investment.

Sorvino says he is happy to provide a full accounting of the money. But, he adds, elected officials don’t necessarily have a good understanding of the movie business. And he resents any implication that he has been less than forthright with the public.

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“To have my honesty impugned has never happened in my life,” the burly character actor said in a phone interview. “The record of how the money was spent was always available, to the penny.”

Sorvino, 68, describes “Cali” as a black comedy about a young ballerina and her dysfunctional family. His Oscar-winning daughter, Mira, has a cameo; another daughter, Amanda, wrote the script; son Michael also appears on screen. Sorvino himself plays Cali’s father, a New York police lieutenant.

Sorvino, who lives in the nearby Pocono Mountains, says he has completed a “very rough cut” of the film and hopes to have it ready for a distributor in three or four months. He’s raised about $975,000 of the movie’s projected $1.3 million budget, including a personal investment of $175,000.

He says he won’t get paid until the county and other investors see a 20 percent return on their investment.

But those investors are getting impatient.

Democrats Michael Washo and Corey O’Brien, who won a landslide victory in November to assume control of the three-member Lackawanna County board of commissioners, have criticized the previous administration’s investment in Sorvino as too risky.

They say the county could hardly afford to bet money on an independent feature film. Property taxes were raised by nearly 50 percent in 2005, and Lackawanna County faces a budget deficit that could reach $10 million in 2009.

“Paul Sorvino’s not to blame,” said O’Brien. “We just didn’t have the money to give.”

At the behest of Washo and O’Brien, Thomas Durkin, the county’s chief financial officer, recently wrote to Sorvino: “We would be interested in receiving a full accounting of the use of the monies we invested, a report on the status of the project, and an estimate of when we might begin to receive a return on our investment.”

The letter was mailed to an old address for Sorvino in West Hollywood, Calif., and was returned to the county last week as undeliverable.

Sorvino was irked that he learned about the letter from the media.

“I was a little annoyed. I was bothered by the fact this nonsense goes on,” he said. “These people contacted the press; they put their Wyatt Earp caps on.”

Sorvino still hopes to use “Cali” as a springboard to a movie studio that he wants to build in northeastern Pennsylvania. He calls it a “boutique operation” that would produce three to five low-budget movies per year.

While many other states and cities around the country have aggressively courted the film industry, Sorvino believes the Scranton region has unique advantages.

It’s only a two-hour drive to New York City, yet costs are very low. During the filming of “Cali,” for example, Sorvino paid only $65 a night for his two-room hotel suite. Scenes were shot in a mansion built during the region’s long-ago coal boom, for which Sorvino paid only $2,000 for a three-week shoot.

“It’s a very favorable climate there. People really love the idea, permits are easy, everybody’s happy to have a movie done,” he said.

Sorvino said he fell in love with Scranton 25 years ago when he was in the city to film “That Championship Season,” a movie adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Jason Miller, who also wrote and directed the film version.

Sorvino grew close to Miller — a longtime Scranton resident who died in 2001 and is perhaps best known for his Oscar-nominated role as Father Damien in “The Exorcist” — and made many friends locally. When he’s in Scranton, Sorvino often stops at Zummo’s Cafe for coffee. He owns a 60-acre farm in the Poconos; Amanda Sorvino runs an animal rescue there, focusing on dogs and thoroughbred race horses.

Sorvino says he’s confident “Cali” will find an audience.

“I have never done anything that I’ve been in charge of that has failed. I don’t intend to make this the first one,” Sorvino said. “It’s a wonderful movie and I can’t wait to get it out.”

Neither can O’Brien.

“If it’s a good film, hopefully we’ll receive a return on our investment,” he said. “If it’s a lousy film, we probably won’t.”